Strategic Partner in the Post-Crisis Architecture: Azerbaijan’s Role in EU Energy Security and South Caucasus Geopolitics

The European Union’s post-2022 effort to replace Russian gas has elevated Azerbaijan from a marginal pipeline supplier to a partner of outsized strategic significance. This article examines the EU–Azerbaijan energy partnership as a case study in how post-Soviet states become structurally embedded within the EU’s energy security architecture. It develops a four-dimensional supplier assessment framework—supply growth, contractual stability, institutional embeddedness, and geopolitical reliability—and applies it comparatively to the EU’s principal gas suppliers. Drawing on path-dependence theory, it argues that the institutional architecture surrounding the Southern Gas Corridor generates self-reinforcing dynamics that bind the two sides into a deepening partnership, positioning Azerbaijan as a strategically distinctive supplier whose significance its modest volume share does not capture.